ASUS Maximus II Formula - new P45 king?

[humeyboy]

The guy who did mod a bios or 2 spat the dummy and went of in a huff.

Your lucky to even get past 475FSB (if that's actually stable in Prime and IBT) on a Quad on this buggy/unsupported Mobo.

[LennyRhys]

Your lucky to even get past 475FSB (if that's actually stable in Prime and IBT) on a Quad on this buggy/unsupported Mobo.

Simply not true - it's common to see 480+ on the MF2 with Q9550/Q9650. I settled for 478 daily because I wanted to keep my CPU at 1.35v, but it was stable over 480 at the same settings.

[humeyboy]

Simply not true - it's common to see 480+ on the MF2 with Q9550/Q9650. I settled for 478 daily because I wanted to keep my CPU at 1.35v, but it was stable over 480 at the same settings.

How is it not true ?

How many in this very forum have stated 475FAB is about the Max stable inc myself ?

Just because you say different does not make it an average !

I have gotten 495FSB but it was a PIA to get and not reliable each reboot so 475 is my limit.

I have benched at 500FSB but 1 reboot later it cannot even post Windows.

There is a few peeps with 500FSB but that's rare and does not change the fact I stated above.

The pattern I found was the same as nearly everyone else with similar hardware as myself be it on this forum or another forum.

This Mobo is a POS for Quads and anyone here with half a clue knows this.

I'm sure if you contest this a few others will chime in that dumped this Mobo for the Gigabyte and never looked back.

[jlewis02]

I have ran it at 490x8 for just over a month and it was fine.I guess im expecting too much out of this board.
My nb voltage was at 1.40

[Leeghoofd]

I'm just thinking the bios is too complex for many users... plus with P45 having good rams is a must...

[humeyboy]

I'm just thinking the bios is too complex for many users... plus with P45 having good rams is a must...

Take a look at the QVL, its a total joke the lack of support.

500FSB should be nothing fancy to set as Memory is only 1000mhz @ 1:1 which in my case would be underclocked.

I can say for certain that the peeps here now on Gigabytes were not n00bs and were to blame for not getting 500FSB stable on a Quad on this Mobo.

If someone gets lucky and gets 500FSB at decent voltage then they got lucky with 3 main parts of their rig playing nicely.

Good sample of this Mobo+Memory+good sample of CPU, possibly lowish VID.

[hallryu]

Simply not true - it's common to see 480+ on the MF2 with Q9550/Q9650. I settled for 478 daily because I wanted to keep my CPU at 1.35v, but it was stable over 480 at the same settings.

Nice results, what is the VID on your CPU?

[ajdaho]

How is it not true ?

How many in this very forum have stated 475FAB is about the Max stable inc myself ?

Just because you say different does not make it an average !

I have gotten 495FSB but it was a PIA to get and not reliable each reboot so 475 is my limit.

I have benched at 500FSB but 1 reboot later it cannot even post Windows.

There is a few peeps with 500FSB but that's rare and does not change the fact I stated above.

The pattern I found was the same as nearly everyone else with similar hardware as myself be it on this forum or another forum.

This Mobo is a POS for Quads and anyone here with half a clue knows this.

I'm sure if you contest this a few others will chime in that dumped this Mobo for the Gigabyte and never looked back.

can you show me your bios settings ?

[LennyRhys]

This Mobo is a POS for Quads and anyone here with half a clue knows this.

I'm sure if you contest this a few others will chime in that dumped this Mobo for the Gigabyte and never looked back.

A few others - you mean the UD3P cheerleading squad ? The guys who went for Gigabyte did so because they wanted 500FSB, not because the MF2 is a POS. Some guys just want that extreme factor; others, like me, are happy with less than 500MHz on the FSB.

I'm not saying the board is the best (it simply isn't, not even close) but it certainly doesn't deserve to be called a POS, because it's the best P45 board I've ever owned/worked with.

Nice results, what is the VID on your CPU?

Cheers It's not mine (any more) but it was a cracker - 1.225 VID, and scaled nicely.

[humeyboy]

can you show me your bios settings ?

If I can be bothered to boot to Bios and write them down but I'm playing Bioshock 2 (PC) for now and watching 24 later.

[In-Fluence]

I have to say as an MIIF owner (and a few Asus products), that it is a good board. It has features you would never see on a Gigabyte like temp sensor connectors and the LCD poster, both of which I found useful, and miss to a certain degree. There is the unfortunate fact that the board really didn't like going anywhere beyond 490 fsb for stability, but on the other hand it remained stable at around 0.05 lower vcore then my UD3P at a slightly lower 484x9. Getting the CPU stable beyond it seemed possible, but only by a few mhz, the NB becomes virtually impossible to stabilise beyond here though.
Since I moved over, the one key thing setting I thought might make a difference on the MIIF (if they ever bothered to update the bios) would be to change the CPU/NB skew step amounts which are 100 compared to the Gigabyte's 50. This made a big difference once going beyond 490 with the same components on the UD3P.
I would still say that given the fact that my Gigabyte is still going strong and I've even managed to get some HWbot points, I will be sticking with it, but only time will tell if those 6 phases are likely to hold out (It likes to have a little squeal when I stress it). I wouldn't blame anyone for sticking with their MIIF, but if you want to move freely whilst squeezing the most out of your RAM & CPU, and even go for some records, then the UD3P is the way to go.

All these opinions are from my own experience and I know that others have done better (and worse) than me when trying to attain that 500FSB stability.

[CL3P20]

I for one am keeping mine for dual benching... if I werent such a noob at figuring out skew settings above 570fsb I would have soo much more fun with this mobo. My current fsb limit is ~575 using a e8xxx cpu. I still have some learning to do for nailing tighter PL's above 530fsb..but overall.. dual-core with this mobo is a breeze. Not so lucky with Q4 benching though...as stated above I have found somewhat of a 'hard-limit' for Q4 stability..regardless of 65nm or 45nm, 460-~485 was the highest I could reach...even then things are a little rocky with stability.

@ leegoofd - I bench wiff craps RAMz on meh MIIF.. curious why you say you need 'gooder'?

[LennyRhys]

I think what Leeg means is that the P45 likes the 5:6 ratio for memory so if you're benching above 500 FSB and want to use that ratio, you need 1200+ capable DDR2.

The most popular kit for high-end P45 boards is the GSkill Pi 9600 4GK which costs £200.

[CL3P20]

Mmm I see.. I have not benched 5:6 above 500fsb..as I dont have any RAM that is 1200+ capable... just spend all my hardware $$ elsewhere before I ever get the chance to buy some real good stix

..Dewar in one hand... Gskill in the other... Dewar it is. ...NB pot in one hand.. Gskill in the other... NB pot it is.. etc.etc.

[Leeghoofd]

@ leegoofd - I bench wiff craps RAMz on meh MIIF.. curious why you say you need 'gooder'?

Lo mister OCN,

Quads OC better with a divider on the Asus range... so for 500FSB and more you need 1200+ rams like Lenny indicated ( this will stabilise things loads )
On the P5Q series I could run a lower PL with rams on another divider than 1:1... I have primed the 9650 at 500FSB with 1200mhz on the rams with ease, 500/1000 needed far too much GTL/Skew tweaking.
Plus like many already mentioned : a very frustrating experience as it was stable one moment, unstable an hour later when doing a retest... but nowhere near as bad as P45 with DDR3 lol...

Dual cores OCing as expected is far easier... hope to see some good scores in the LCC dude... trying to get hold off an I7 mobo...

[humeyboy]

I would buy 1200mhz Memory if I thought :

1) It would run ok as of lack of support in the QVL.

2) It was 2x2GB kits for 8GB (2x kits)total

3 ) getting off the 1:1 Ratio would help the FSB reach 500.

I've had 8GB of Dominator rev 1.1 @1175mhz with 2.1v and no major tweaks while on a Dual Core but on a Quad it acts up about 1135-1150mhz.

Some peeps got 1200mhz on the same rev 1.1 Memory, I cannot even with 1 Module, major tweaks and extra voltage.

[hallryu]

I'm stable at 4.203 GHz at the moment. I think my Memory will possibly restrict me going any higher at the moment. I'm still getting to grips with this BIOS, which has more settings than you can shake a stick at. Happy so far!

[eSp!s0]

Is there a hacked or modded bios for this board?
I seem to have hit a fsb wall at 495fsb stable will boot at 500 but will not make it into windows.
I have the 2202 bios in it at the moment and the other one is a 13 somthing version.
I have had my q9550 at 495x8.5 and 495x8 and it still stops at the same fsb everytime.

Yes, take a look at this startpost (from a german forum): http://www.hardwareluxx.de/community...71&postcount=1
But it didn`t change sth. in OC for me, so I am using the - mBIOS.1901.101 with the new ROMs for Marvell/Intel Controller only and without any other tweaks.

[ajdaho]

[CL3P20]

Lo mister OCN,

Quads OC better with a divider on the Asus range... so for 500FSB and more you need 1200+ rams like Lenny indicated ( this will stabilise things loads )
On the P5Q series I could run a lower PL with rams on another divider than 1:1... I have primed the 9650 at 500FSB with 1200mhz on the rams with ease, 500/1000 needed far too much GTL/Skew tweaking.
Plus like many already mentioned : a very frustrating experience as it was stable one moment, unstable an hour later when doing a retest... but nowhere near as bad as P45 with DDR3 lol...

Dual cores OCing as expected is far easier... hope to see some good scores in the LCC dude... trying to get hold off an I7 mobo...

..Noted...

..as for the LLC.. heres a peek... Im getting closer

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1019761 ..still on PL10 too...got some special Crucial 2x1's coming in this week..good for 1300+mhz... should help quite a bit!!

[Leeghoofd]

Don't overdo it or you will us make to sell them Extreme boards

6.5 multi with 615FSB might be a killer setup for the compo...it could be a winner in pi 1M... if it was 32Mb you would be slayed... or at least chopped in half

[jlewis02]

Nice
What bios are you using?

[In-Fluence]

Yes, looks very nice to see another 500fsb stability attempt although I would say at just an 8x multi that things would always be easier to stabilise, and 12K fft test is where the CPU strain really begins to max out.

I'm tempted to have another go with my G.Skill PIs on this board, but I'm already aware of how much time I've wasted trying to get 500fsb stable. I'm also keeping an ear out for some feedback about something that may contribute to the MIIF cause for better fsb stability with quads, but I'm kind of going out on a limb... here's to hoping though

[ajdaho]

bios is 2202 , i try also do it, in bios 1602 , but in this bios was bug , whatever i put in multiplier (6 or 7 or 8 or 7,5 ) mobo always use 8,5 when fsb exceed 490mhz

[MarcusFoX]

Hey guys some clocks ive been working on over the last week. Ive been able to get 495 working on 500fsb this week.

Now bios 2202 and 1901 seemed to be the same for me for a quad core. The diffrence was id get this bug in 1901 where the system would all of a sudden become super unstable and wont boot windows.. after a bios reset from 2202to 1901 the system would become stable again.

Bios:2202
Vcore: 1.47
vtt:1.7
NB:1.65
memory Read:lighter
TRD:9-11
GTL
0:-10
1:-55
2:-10
3:-55